Robocopy Multi-Threaded File Copy Performance

The purpose of this review is to evaluate the performance of multi-threaded file copy operations using the Windows built-in command line file copy utility Robocopy. The performance test was performed on a quad-core machine with 16 GB of system memory running the Windows Server 2012 operating system. The T1 file copy operation was performed using a single file copy thread and the T2 file copy operation was performed using two parallel file copy threads. The file copy operations were performed between two identical Crucial MX300 1TB SSD drives using the same data set containing 30,000 small and medium-sized files.

The average Disk Average Request Time is better for Robocopy T2 (0.38 ms. vs. 0.59 ms.), the minimum Disk Average Request Time is better for Robocopy T2 (0.00 ms. vs. 0.10 ms.) and the maximum Disk Average Request Time is better for Robocopy T2 (0.69 ms. vs. 2.62 ms.).

Robocopy T2 vs. Robocopy T1 - Disk Average Read Request Time

Robocopy T2

0.23 ms.

Robocopy T1

0.36 ms.

Less is Better

Average: 0.29 ms.

Min: 0.00 ms.

Max: 3.05 ms.

The average Disk Average Read Request Time is better for Robocopy T2 (0.23 ms. vs. 0.36 ms.), the minimum Disk Average Read Request Time is better for Robocopy T2 (0.00 ms. vs. 0.11 ms.) and the maximum Disk Average Read Request Time is better for Robocopy T2 (0.56 ms. vs. 3.05 ms.).

Robocopy T2 vs. Robocopy T1 - Disk Average Write Request Time

Robocopy T2

0.50 ms.

Robocopy T1

0.51 ms.

Less is Better

Average: 0.51 ms.

Min: 0.00 ms.

Max: 1.54 ms.

The average Disk Average Write Request Time is better for Robocopy T2 (0.50 ms. vs. 0.51 ms.), the minimum Disk Average Write Request Time is better for Robocopy T2 (0.00 ms. vs. 0.03 ms.) and the maximum Disk Average Write Request Time is better for Robocopy T2 (1.25 ms. vs. 1.54 ms.).